State Farm may be great on the accident front but let me tell you about the go round I had with them a couple of months ago. DH & I went over to my 83 y.o. mother's house to check out a leak on her car. Since she keeps all of her service receipts in her glove box as I was going through them I saw her insurance card was expiring the next day - and this was late morning on a Friday. I asked her if she had a new insurance card. mmmm - no. Let's look in the checkbook to see if she paid the bill. (She's starting to get forgetful). No. Did she GET the renewal bill? No. So I look on the card for the phone number to call. Only phone number on there is the local agent's number. Call it - it's "out of service" not working. (Not turned off - just not working - that funny ring ring beep beep beep thing). So I look on the bill for an 800 number. No 800 number - nothing! You have to call the agent only!!! So I take her info with me and go home to get on my computer to look up the State Farm website customer service. Now this is Friday - Mom will be w/o insurance tomorrow. State Farm website - no 800 numbers (you can email them - hah! again this is Friday - don't have time for this) they want you to call a local agent. So I find another local agent. THEY can't look up my Mom's info 'cause each agent's client's are in their own database. So they give me the regional office. Their out to lunch. I'm leaving messages all over -by now it's 3pm. I try again at her agent. The phone now works. I'm leaving messages till I get a real person I explain the situation - saying she never got the bill. (Oh that's corporate's problem). We'll take a credit card payment over the phone or she can drive down to the office or mail a check in to the local office - if they get it by Monday she'll be covered. So I tell them she'll mail a check in. I call my Mom - tell her to mail a check to the local office - give her the address info. So she mails it the next day (Saturday) - but I'm sure it's without any of the insurance infor - account number or anything. For the next couple of weeks I asked my mom if she ever got a new insurance card. She never said. So - I certainly hope she did. But IMO - to not have an 800 number on the card is ridiculous and to have to deal strictly with the local office is also frustrating. (Obviuosly I don't have State Farm).

We have had USAA for nearly 16 years. We've had two smaller claims for our house - a leak in our roof that damaged our bedroom wall and a leak in our water heater that flooded our rec room. Both of those were many years ago. We've had at least 1-2 claims from car accidents that were dh's fault. Never had any problems with the homeowner's claims but our auto insurance went up slightly after dh's second accident, but mainly b/c they were within months of each other. I absolutely love USAA - they have always been incredibly helpful whenever we've called about anything (we have several different accounts with them). Dh's family had USAA when he was growing up. Their house caught on fire after faulty wiring in a Sears refrigerator in their garage caused a fire. They had incredible service from USAA. Someone had a horrible time with Allstate years ago. His house burned down after catching fire during renovation. I don't remember the story now, but he ended up suing them. I remember going by the house one day and he had a huge sign posted in front of his house chastising Allstate. I don't recall what exactly happened but I believe he did win the case eventually.

I don't know what Azzalea's problem is with utility companies and to be perfectly honest, I don't care, and while her DH may have worked for a utility company and claims to have some inside information, I doubt seriously if he worked for the utility company in question, that being Dominion East Ohio Gas Company (DEOGC). On the other hand, On three separate occassions DEOGC performed their services at my mothers house while I was there, so I feel that as a retired plumber myself, I too am qualified to assess the performance, and you may rest assured I too asked all the pertinent questions, like why would the gas company repair water & sewer lines? The reason has nothing to do with the gas company scrambling for money as was eluded by Azzalea. It has to do with Code requirements and union contracts. The gas company primarily installs and maintains the municipal gas lines, however Commercial and Municipal gas lines are not regulated under the plumbing codes, they fall under a separate set of Municipal codes and the rank & file employees that work for the gas company are under the "Pipefitters Union" and they are only permitted to work on the municipal gas lines and the individual service drops from the municipal line to the curb stop shutoff valve. The gas service line from the curb stop to the structure is regulated under the Plumbing code and you must be a certified Plumber to work on that line. The problem is that in the state of Ohio one only has to complete the apprenticeship and pass the state plumbers exam to become a commercial plumbers. Residential plumbers are regulated by the individual jurisdication, and in most jurisdictions the only requirement to become a licensed residential plumber is to pay an annual fee. As if that is not problamatic enough, in many small communities and in rural areas outside the local municipal district they have absolutely no licensing requirements to be a residential plumber. The gas company was then confronted with a problem. When they were called upon to install a new gas service they could only make the tap into the municipal gas line and extend the residential service line to the curb stop. From there they had to hire a plumber to run the line to the structure, but they had no way to insure the plumbers were even qualified to properly run a gas line so they opted to hire their own plumbers, but that instantly caused a union dissagreement between the Pipefitters Union & the Plumbers Union. The final solution was that the gas company hired qualified residential & cmmercial plumbers on a permanent subcontract from a local plumbing company. The plumbers remained as bona fide employees of the respective plumbing companies, but they reported for duty directly to the gas company and worked with gas company vehicles, equipment and materials and under the direct supervision of gas company supervisors. That was working out to the complete satisfaction of both unions and all parties concerned, but it was soon discovered that the gas company did not have enough work installing service drops to justify the expense of having separate crews. They then relized the the plumbers were legally qualified to not only install and maintain the gas lines, they were also qualified to install and maintain water & sewer lines so the gas company started the "line Backer" service to insure their plumbing crews would be afforded a steady 40hr work week, thus insuring they could keep the same ppl doing the job. Now let us compare the gas company service to having the service performed through your homeowners insurance. From my first hand experience, when you call the gas company they will have an estimator on site within the hour. The estimator examines the job and determines the level of service required, then radios that information back to their dispatchers. The dispatchers then apply for all necessary permits, notifiy "Dig Safe" to come out and mark all utility lines before they commence digging, and the appropriate repair crew is dispatched to the location. On two occassions when they came to my mothers house they already had a hard copy of the plumbing permit on the truck when they arrived, on the third occassion the repair crew arrived and began unloading their tools and equipment and within a few minutes a pickup truck arrived with their permit. The crews work out of a large gas company 5 ton crewcab truck with a 20' hard covered utility bed loaded with all the tools, parts and materials to perform the task at hand, and they were pulling a large commercial heavy duty equipment trailer with either a trencher or a backhoe, whichever was required to do the job. In all three instances the job was completed within 8hrs from the time we first called the gas company, and when they did the water line it was on a Sunday. Having spent over 25 years in the plumbing trade I had many opportunities to do similar work through insurance companies. Generally when you call an insurance company they will send an adjuster out within a day or two to examine the problem. The then take their findings back to the office and discuss whether or not it is covered by the policy. If it is a catastrophic failure its covered, but if the problem resulted from old age, it is a maintenance problem and not covered. Of course it will take them a day or so to make that determination. The insurance company will then call you and tell you what their determination was and if they authorize the service they will issue you a P.O. number or control number and tell you to go ahead and contact a plumber. You are then left scrambling through the phone book looking for a plumber that can come out within a short time and make the repairs, course that short time may be another 4 or 5 days. No time now to go through the process of checking references, you need the service immediately. To add insult to injury, how many homeowners have any firsthand knowledge of what the code requirements are? Do you feel yourself qualified to judge the quality of the work performed? If the truth be told, most homeowners would not even know enough to insist on pulling a permit and having the job inspected..Oh yes, and did we mention that even if the job is covered by your insurance, you first have to reach down in your pocket and cover the deductable. So as I said before,,if you happen to live in an area servied by Dominion East Ohio Gas company, in my opinion you would be a fool not to take advantage of it.

7 or 8 years ago, I switched our homeowners insurance to USAA to get a premium savings, several hundred dollars. A few years after the switch, as the policy year end was approaching, I got a letter from them, asking to schedule an in-person visit. It said they like to regularly check in on customers' insured dwellings to be sure that coverage levels are adequate, etc., Sounded like a good idea. A guy came out, walked around, made some measurements, took pictures and then left. It was never clear if the guy was an inspector, or an appraiser, or what. About one month later, I got my premium notice for the next year - the price had doubled. Not 1.5 X, or 1.8 X, but literally 2X. That was the end of my own insurance relationship with USAA. Over the years, I've had other dealings with them, and two of my kids have bank accounts with them, but phew, their insurance practices left me shaking my head. I switched back to the company I'd left (with which I'd kept my auto insurance) and we've all lived happily every after.